FIG. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of a portion of a typical wireless communications system in the prior art, which system serves a number of wireless terminals that are situated within a geographic area. The heart of a typical wireless system is known as a Mobile Switching Center ("MSC") or, alternatively, as a Mobile Telephone Switching Office ("MTSO"). Typically, the MSC is connected to a number of base stations, which are dispersed throughout the geographic area serviced by the system, and the local and long-distance telephone networks. The MSC is responsible for, among other things, routing or "switching" conversations between wireless terminals and between a wireless terminal and a wireline terminal, which is connected to the wireless system via the local and/or long-distance networks.
The geographic area serviced by the wireless system is partitioned into a number of spatially distinct areas called "cells." As depicted in FIG. 1, each cell is schematically represented by a hexagon; in practice, however, each cell usually has an irregular shape that depends on the topography of the terrain serviced by the system. Typically, each cell contains a base station, which comprises the antennas and radios that the base station uses to communicate with the wireless terminals and also comprises the transmission equipment that the base station uses to communicate with the MSC.
For example, when wireless terminal 111 desires to communicate with wireless terminal 112, wireless terminal 111 sends its data to base station 100, which relays the data to MSC 120. Upon receipt of the data, and with the knowledge that it is intended for wireless terminal 112, MSC 120 then returns the data back to base station 100, which relays the data, via radio, to wireless terminal 112. Although it may appear odd that the data must be transmitted from the base station to the MSC only to be returned, it is necessary when base station 100 does not have switching capability. In general, the link between the base station and the MSC carries a great quantity of data, and now that wireless systems are carrying substantially more video and high-speed data than they have in the past, it has become very important for the link to and from the base stations to be capable of efficiently carrying large quantities of data.